Planning the Future of Northside Community Education

The first in a series of community wide conversations on Northside schools will be held on June 10th at Chase Elementary School, 4151 Turrill Street. Sponsored by the Northside Community Council’s Education Committee and Cincinnati Public Schools, these conversations have been in the planning stages for several months.

We are calling on all community members from parents, neighbors, clergy, business owners, school employees, law enforcement, non-profit leaders and alike to join us in this community effort. Participants will have an opportunity to share their unique story of the relationship between the community, youth and our schools, and to create a shared vision for how the whole community can work together to support and nurture the children of Northside who currently attend one of our three schools, Chase Elementary, Parker Woods Montessori and St. Boniface.

This effort will involve three conversations, the first in June with two more scheduled for fall 2014 after school restarts. The first session called “Telling Your Story” will give all participants an opportunity to share their unique story of the relationship between the community and its youth and schools, using facilitated small breakout sessions. The second session “Creating a Shared Vision” will focus on creating a shared vision of how the whole community can work together to support and nurture its children. The third session “Sharing Our Resources” will focus on bringing community resources together to help achieve our shared vision for our schools.

To accommodate as many community members as possible, we have scheduled two 90 minute sessions on June 10th from 4:00-5:30pm or 6:30-8:00 pm at Chase Elementary so everyone can “tell their story” about schools and community. Please choose a time and come share your input. This is a unique opportunity for Northsiders to talk about the future of our schools, and how our community can work together to strengthen our community by strengthening our schools.

The Education Committee meets monthly and is open to any interested community member. For more information, contact Committee Chair Sue Wilke at suewilke@cinci.rr.com.

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By Sue Wilke

Sue Wilke is a retired P&G and non-profit executive currently on the boards of the Northside Community Council and CAIN. A former school board member, she has a strong interest in improving education for all children.